The Key to the Future is in the Past
by jaggirl-hammer
Summary: Mac meets someone after TILAM that sends her to Harm
1. The Meeting

The coffee Mac held had long since grown cold but images of Sadik falling back with the fatal bullet to the head played over and over again in her head. The café was near empty at ten o'clock at night. Someone entered her line of vision, shaking her head she stared at the man who sat across from her.  
  
"You don't mind if I join you, do you Ma'am?"  
  
"No not at all, Sir." Mac answered politely silently wishing that she could be all alone to return to the dark thoughts that had surrounded her since she had 'murdered' Sadik.  
  
"Please don't call me 'Sir'. You can call me Striker. That look on your face has haunted too many people. I'll sit here just incase you would like to talk about it."  
  
Mac sat in stunned silence, had she really been that transparent? The silence stretched out in compatible silence has her coffee was replenished and Striker's was delivered. He sat across from her writing in some type of notebook while she mulled over everything. Who was she; she couldn't recognize herself anymore.  
  
"I murdered someone."  
  
"Oh." The word uttered in acknowledgement not judgment.  
  
"He was an evil man. He killed so many people, harmed two people I care about, had people tortured, including a friend. He wanted to kill unsuspecting college students in a club."  
  
"Uh uh." His relative silence allowed Mac to continue in her own time.  
  
"I shot him once in the shoulder. He was done, should have gone with the authorities to be questioned but he looked at me one more time. I lost it. I put a bullet through his forehead."  
  
"I see."  
  
Silence reigned once again. The only noise came from the workers in the kitchen and the clock with its constant 'tick, tock, tick, tock'.  
  
"Am I just like him?"  
  
"No. If he had won he would not be regretting his actions, he would not feel any remorse."  
  
Once again they seized speaking. Mac feeling only slightly repaired but how could this man even know what he was talking about? Her mind once again wondered. She had thought of going to talk to Webb but he was so self- absorbed. Harm, the person she used to go to for every problem, had other things with higher priority and he could never understand.  
  
"I'm going to tell you a story I've never mentioned to someone that was not personally close to me. I was a marine during the Vietnam War. After the war we were hearing reports of MIAs being spotted so a bunch of us former Marines went back to Vietnam. We were all at least in our 30s or 40s. Then one summer a kid joined our ranks, he was only 16 but he was as mature as a 25 year old. We were matched up together, we happened upon a man, probably in his 20s, who was dressed in a Vietnamese uniform, the kid I was with shot him before he got either of us. He only hit him in the shoulder so it was nothing serious but he stood over the man and shot him again ending his life. The worst part is he felt no remorse for what he had done. I don't remember how many people he killed but eventually the death of someone he loved over there calmed him down and he returned home. I've kept in touch with him, he went into the Navy first as an aviator after a crash he went to JAG then he was flying again and then back to JAG. I figured he would never leave, he hadn't left after he found his father so it just seemed he would always be a Navy man. I received a letter from him about a month ago, he had recently been reinstated after a stint with the CIA; I was shocked. I asked him what happened. He said, 'I resigned to save and find the women I love. I saved her and the CIA agent she had been captured with but to do it I reverted to the 16 year old me I had thought I left in the jungle. I couldn't tell her I love her and she gave me a never.' He's now become the guardian to a 14-year-old girl. He's a great man, always running from his past if he's not running to it. He stopped running to it when he found his father but he is still running from it."  
  
"Harm?"  
  
Striker looked up in shock, "You know him?" Mac nods her head before Striker continues. "Oh shit, Harm's going to kill me if he finds out I told you or even worse if she were to find out. This stays between us, this girl can never know."  
  
"There's only one problem with that, you just told her."  
  
Mac deposited money on the table, feeling all of her confidence returning. Harm was able to overcome his 'flight on the dark side' while still stuck in its depths; she could over come hers out of its elements, with help from Harm. "Thank you." The bell over the door jangled its good-bye as she left.  
  
Striker nodded his head in acknowledgement. He hadn't only save Harm out there but Harm had saved him from getting stuck in those jungles. Harm deserved happiness and that's what he was about to get. He deposited money and then left, the bell never jangled a farewell. 


	2. The Past Returns

Disclaimer: Sorry it took me so long to add another chapter but I wanted to get some responses and then I was out of town. I'm glad you're all enjoying it...it's my first fanfic.  
  
Harm paced back and forth across the floor of his apartment. The uneasiness he felt ever since Paraguay wouldn't leave him alone. The stints with the CIA only increased his appetite for action. Crop dusting did nothing for him. Mattie, another person to care for, to love seemed like it would work and it had helped but the unease remained.  
  
Feelings that had been taken away with Gym in the deep jungles of Vietnam had returned while he was on his quest for Mac and Webb. Now all Harm wanted to do was hunt for the enemy and end his/ her life or at least hand them over to someone that could obtain information from them.  
  
Harm was startled by the loud knock on his door, considering the hour of the night. Standing in the door way was the Secretary of the Navy.  
  
"Sir, what are you doing here?"  
  
"You're being called up for a special mission. Mattie will be under the watch of Petty Officer Coates, Admiral Chegwidden, and Colonel Mackenzie. Please grab a duffle with some civilian attire, you will be given you're other things later."  
  
"Don't I get a chance to say good-bye?"  
  
"It's top secret Commander. Only the President, myself and a select few others know about this. Chegwidden will be given a plausible story that he shall tell everyone else."  
  
Harm quickly gather his things together, took a quick look around his apartment and then he disappeared.  
  
Mac ran up the stairs, too impatient to take the elevator, pounding on Harm's door. She waited with excitement until she realized he wasn't home. She ran to the door of Mattie's apartment. IT took a few minutes for Jen to get to the door.  
  
"Ma'am why are you here?"  
  
"Jen, where's Harm?"  
  
"He's in his apartment sleeping."  
  
"No he's not."  
  
As Mac walked dejected out to her car, Harm was seated in the Oval Office across from the President of the United States.  
  
"Because you have the skills of a pilot, recon marine, scout, seal and sniper we're sending you in alone to first Vietnam and from there anywhere deemed necessary." 


	3. Harm?

Sorry it took so long to write, things have been hectic with the holidays coming up. I had some time before I had to attend Choir and thought that I would post the next chapter. For the purpose of what I've written the mission is only to Vietnam. I know it's short but that's how it goes. Hope you enjoy.  
  
The silence stretched inside the Oval Office. The President had already informed Harm of the mission and why he was being used and was patiently awaiting a response.  
  
"Sir, if I undergo this mission I ask for only one thing in return. I would like to see if a relationship between Colonel Mackenzie and I could work, with out any fraternization charges. If our relationship doesn't work out then I would like to me assigned more of these types of missions."  
  
Shock filtered across the President's face, like he had never been issued such a declaration. "I think that can be arranged Commander. You leave in two hours, good luck."  
  
Mac sat on Harm's black leather couch for hours waiting, hoping that he would return soon. By the time darkness gave into light she knew that something was up and that something was not good. A restless, uneasy feeling had settled into her stomach warning her of impending doom and pain. What exactly she didn't know nor to whom it would happen but Harm was her guess and the aftermath would have a huge effect, not just on her, but the entire nation.  
  
The jungles of Vietnam were familiar to him and many others from his country. The stifling heat and humidity no longer bothered him as it once had. Shadows moved all about he was one of them. Harmon Rabb, had become one with the jungle in the month that he had traveled, undetected, carrying out the duties assigned to him. There was only one more target and then he could go home, return to the life he had created, and hopefully leave the monster that he had once again become, on the jungle floors. 


End file.
